New life in Amman, thus far

I’ve been in Jordan now for two weeks and two days and so far, so good. I have learned so much just in my daily interactions with people and in making my way around the city. I have been incredibly “blessed” in knowing and spending time with my friend’s family who lives here in Amman. I don’t have anything astute to share just yet, but in case you’re curious about my day-to-day, here’s an overview of my life so far in this small yet vast and simple yet complex country.

 (I have to first give the disclaimer that these views are not the official views of the Fulbright organization and are in no way linked to the United States Government. I have no affiliation with the US Embassy and any views expressed are solely based on my own personal experiences.)

 When I first arrived, I stayed for a few days at my friend’s parent’s beautiful home on the northeast side of Amman. It was more than wonderful to be able to be picked up from the airport by a local family and have a comfortable and welcoming place to stay while becoming acclimated with the city. They served me delicious Arabic food and all in all, made me feel at home. My friend himself took me out to several sights around the city and out to Wadi Mujib. Wadi Mujib a nature reserve which is basically a tall, narrow canyon with a river running through it. An hour or so drive out of Amman, you need private transportation to get there. Entry price is a little steep at 16 JD (~$22.50). At the visitor’s center, my friend, his brother and I donned a life jacket and walked down to the river where our excursion began. At first, you can shy away from the water and walk along the banks, but at a certain point not too far from the entrance, you have to literally get your feet wet. For about 45 minutes, we trudged up the stream towards the waterfall at the end of the gorge or, at the beginning of the river. My friend helped me face my fears along the way, encouraging me to climb up slippery wet boulders and walk around, behind and through the waterfall. At first I envisioned myself cracking my head open or drowning in the 2-3 feet of standing water, but alas, neither took place. Alhamdulillah.

 We began the Fulbright orientation a few days later and for about three days, sat in a room and listened to various people drone on about the sundry dangers of living in Jordan. Diseases you can catch. People who might harm you. Clothes you shouldn’t wear. Places you shouldn’t venture. The chain of events that would take place in case of evacuation. (This was particularly interesting, as they gave the example of Israel sending a nuclear missile to Iran, consequently jeopardizing Jordanian air space. Given that Syria’s in disarray, Lebanon’s a little shaky, and Saudi is not place for us to venture into, over land travel to Baghdad where we could be airlifted would be our best bet. And anytime your best bet is drive into Iraq and be airlifted from Baghdad, you know things aren’t looking too hot for you. But in all honestly the likelihood of this is very small.)

 So after receiving word the cultural and political do and do-not’s (which I did appreciate, but which do not overly concern me), we went on a mad dash apartment hunt around the city. This was especially stressful because they told us “Look around for who you might want to live with. First come, first served after we see the apartments. We’re looking today and tomorrow.” I went into the day not knowing who I would live with or where I would live or even really having thought about any of this, and came away knowing who I would live with, where I would live and having already made the agreement with the landlady.

 While I struggled to make this decision so quickly and felt extremely anxious about whether or not this was the “right decision,” in the end I am satisfied with the choice. What concerned me so much was all of the things that we had to do in order to make our place liveable. Not livable in the sense that there was a lot of fixing up to do. On the contrary, this place was fully furnished, with appliances, silverware, furniture, closets, hangers, beds, brand new sheets, balcony furniture, cooking ware, etc. However it had no internet, no “solar” (diesel oil stored in a large cubed tank outside and used to heat water for the shower and heat the radiators in the winter), and no drinking water. Some apartments for rent come with all of these amenities already set up, but this particular apartment did not. I was overwhelmed thinking that I would have to navigate the streets of Amman to find these things. But at the end of the day, I still signed the lease and forged ahead.

 The apartment ended up being in a great location for me in that my school is a 30 minute walk or a 1 JD cab ride away. That works out quite well because there is little public transportation apart from some busses which go from city to city and others which run down Amman’s main roads only. They do not penetrate most of the neighborhood and side roads which are the ones I would need to talk to get to work. It’s also a great location in terms of proximity to grocery stores. This was another concern I had about choosing my apartment’s location: feeding myself. It turned out that my apartment has a corner store just across the street (a one minute walk from my door to the door of Laymouna Market), a bigger corner store complete with fruits and veggies one block away (a 4 minute walk) and a ginormous Safeway (related to the American Safeway chain, I’m guessing).

 In terms of obtaining all the amenities that we take for granted in the United States, that wasn’t too difficult either. We walked into the cell phone and internet provider store, Zain, and walked out with a wireless router that we just had to plug in and turn on. The only caveat about internet here is that the data usage is limited. That is, we purchased the 20 GBs for 27 JD package. And fifteen days later, lo and behold, we have reached our limit. Once you reach your limit, you technically still have internet access, just at a slower-than-tortoise rate. For example, I had a notification on my phone that a friend tagged me in several pictures on Facebook. It took about one minute for my Facebook homepage to load, then a few more minutes before the first photo loaded. And forget about watching anything on youtube or listening to streams of anything. In fact, my roommates and I guessed that our we reached our limit so quickly because of streaming youtube videos. We decided that we’ll cut out all youtube use and limit skype video to once a week. Apparently Skype voice and Viber doesn’t take too much data.

 As for the diesel, we had to speak with our building’s haaris, or go-to man. Most apartment buildings have a haaris to watch over the building and manage the various maintenance tasks. Our haaris, previously Tharwat, currently and temporarily his cousin Ahmad, lives in a room in the basement of the apartment building and is available for your any need. He collects rings your doorbell once a day to collect garbage. He will pick up a grocery at the nearby market if you need it. He washes tenants cars and cleans the premise of the building. He also arranges for the diesel truck to pass by and fill the tank in the basement/ garage. Thanks to my Arabic-speaking roommate, we were able to arrange a time and I volunteered to be home at the time when the diesel truck would arrive. Each individual tenant has a key to the padlock which guards this black liquid gold in its tank. (In fact, solar is so expensive, but so necessary, that apartments’ diesel tanks are often broken into and their contents siphoned off and taken away.) I brought down my key to the tank and watched the man pump 500 liters of diesel (also called solarium, or solar) into the tank. This cost us 265 JDs and will hopefully last us until January or February. However, there’s really no telling because it depends completely on our ability effectively plan our hot water usage.

 Up until about 30 minutes ago, we also had an electric speed heater to immediately heat water in a shower in one of our bathrooms. This is probably the most effective means of heating water, because it is localized to the shower that we are using (while turning on the solar heats the water for the entire apartment.) However, a fellow Fulbrighter who ran out of water at her apartment and was using the shower at our apartment in the meantime used it incorrectly (turned on the heater without turning on the water) and therefore, literally burned out the shower head. Because there was not a steady stream of water through the speed heater, the water already in the pipe became super heated and melted the plastic shower head and preventing the flow of water through it. We called our landlady and are looking into getting this fixed, but its Friday and wallah, nobody is working today.

 We are lucky in that we have not had problems with water for everyday use (toilets, shower, sinks, washing machine), but we are lazy in that we have not yet called to set up a drinking water delivery service. The tap water here is non potable unless boiled. That means that we can use it for tea, coffee or cooking purposes. However for an ice cold glass of water, we have to buy bottled water from the store. This hasn’t been a problem at all because 5 gallon jugs are sold at the corner store just across from our house and while heavy, are no problem to carry to 50 feet from the store to our kitchen. However we’ll soon have to give the water delivery company a call and set up the service. We have the number hanging on our refrigerator; it’s just a question of who is willing to trudge through a Arabic phone conversation, invariably giving the person on the other end of the line a good laugh and embarrassing herself in the process.

 The next amenity that I am looking to obtain is a gym membership. Though this is technically more a luxury than necessity, I see it as completely necessary in maintaining my mental, emotional and physical wellness over the next year. Whereas in the US its easy to don a pair of tennis shoes and run around any neighborhood, that is nearly impossible here for both geographic reasons. Simply put, Amman is built on a series of hills which in any sense would make it quite difficult to go on a 30 minute jog. For those of you who read that and say “Well, great! Who wouldn’t want a hilly, challenging daily run?” I challenge you to come here and try it out. In addition to the complete lack of flat surfaces, the sidewalks here are made for everything but walking. The elevation changes every 20 feet or so, making way for a driveway, or giving way to a set of stairs to help you scale the steep incline. Additionally, it seems someone thought it might be cute to plant trees and shrubs along the sidewalk, as we have in the US. While this idea is nice in theory, this person did not think ahead to when the tree would grow to a size where it takes up, in fact, the entire sidewalk, completely defeating the purpose of the path on which it was placed in the first place. The thrill runners still might say, “Oh, well then just run in the street!” Again, I invite any of these people to Amman to attempt running in the one-to-two foot margin between the parked cars and the cars which speed, zoom and weave down the already narrow streets. Additionally, the multitude of construction sites along the streets will provide you an extra obstacle with their metal poles, wood beams and loose tools lying on the side of the road. If you REALLY value your health, you would see that simply not running at all is the best way to maintain a healthy life.

 To avoid these problems, I have chosen to join a luxury gym which is a 10 minute walk from my house and is on the way to my school. When I checked it out last week, I was amazed. It’s two stories containing several different work out areas: a spinning studio, two studios for aerobic classes (salsa, zumba, belly dancing, yoga, pilates and the list goes on), a lounge area with wifi and complimentary refreshments, DVDs for check out, and a women’s-only zone. It is common for gyms here to have either a women’s-only area or have women’s hours. Because many women dress conservatively for personal and religious purposes, they feel most comfortable in short work-out shirts and a tank top only in the company of other women. Alternatively, people like me who have no problem bearing it all, simply feel more comfortable in an all-women’s area because there are no men to gawk and stare. Because Jordan is a society where the women’s place is still more in the home, it is rare to see a lot of women out and about in the streets. It is even more rare to see women bearing skin out in the streets. So it makes sense that if a woman is wearing shorts and a T-shirt at the gym, simply because this is what is comfortable for exercising and not because she is looking to show off, a man would gawk and stare because it is so uncommon to see women bearing this much skin. (And because men are overly sexual creatures in the first place, a fact that I have gathered from my own personal life experience, not only in interactions with Jordanian men.)

Additionally, I chose this “luxury” gym because of its clientele. With its steep monthly rate (around 60 JDs), it’s a given that only wealthy Jordanians are able to afford a membership. So I chose Fitness First because I want to get in with the rich and handsome Arab men, right? Wrong. It can be assumed that wealthy people here in Jordan either a) were educated and/ or made their money outside of Jordan or b) have family money/ made their money here and have had opportunities to travel outside of Jordan. This tells me that they have spent time in countries where women are successful entrepreneurs, students, mothers, athletes, executives, etc. It tells me that they have seen women walking around in shorts, tank tops, mini-skirts, or bikinis just going about their business. This tells me that they are likely to have female friends who they value as intelligent human beings and not just sexual objects. Maybe they have even seen these good female friend wearing booty shorts and still, at the end of the day, valued this friend for her intellect over her ass. (Then again, that’s a lot to ask of any guy, and to be honest, I wouldn’t mind being valued for both). So back to my point: I like this gym because it’s #1) baller and #2) a place where I am likely to feel comfortable working out. I have officially joined yet because we are in price negotiations with the membership salesman, Mahmood. As was recommended by our program director, we rolled up to the gym with a group of five girls and demanded a group rate over the exorbitant individual rate he was asking of us. He is currently in negotiations with the group sales director in Dubai and will get back to us within a few days, insha’allah.

 Well, after a few hours sitting in my apartment, I feel that I should be getting out to enjoy Amman on this beautiful Friday afternoon. There is still much to tell, but I shall save this for the proverbial rainy day, as it seems there are only a few rainy days each year in this country.